These studies are not related, but they do help explain why the orthodoxy has such trouble believing all the beneftis attributed to ascorbate by Stone, Pauling and others. How can one sugar-like substance with a serum half-life of 30 minutes do all this?

In the first report, from Harvard, 880 substances were studied to see if they could stimulate heart stem cells into becoming heart muscle cells. They found one substance, and only one. Vitamin C.

The second study, in humans, found that even low-dosage, relatively infrequent vitamin C can improve the function of the immune system in as little as 5 hours.

Lee wrote:Lee and his colleagues tested 880 bioactive substances – including drugs and vitamins – approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to see if they stimulated the mouse stem cells to become heart muscle cells. The cells were genetically altered to give off a fluorescent bright green color when viewed under a microscrope if they had become heart muscle cells.

"We only got 1 out of the 880 to light up, and that was from ascorbic acid, the chemical commonly known as vitamin C," says Lee, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and a lecturer in biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

This effect, if confirmed has important and broad implications for persons in heart failure and who have suffered heart attacks. (This finding may help explain how dead heart muscle, as reported by EKG, is reversed after high vitamin C/E intake. See http://www.internetwks.com/carolsmith )

Next, From WebMD

There is some useful information in the following (slanted) WebMD report on how rapidly vitamin C enhances the immune system. This study was in humans, not a test tube.

Ritter wrote:Presenting at the 60th Anniversary Meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI) on Tuesday, Ritter and colleagues reported that 12 healthy subjects who took one gram of vitamin C a day for two weeks showed a boosted immune system response during that time.

What's more, when they looked at responses in four of the patients, they found that in two of them, the response to vitamin C took place within five hours. According to Ritter, this might mean that taking a vitamin C tablet at the first sign of a cold could achieve an effect quickly enough to ward off that cold. "You may not have to take it every day," she says.

Ritter and colleagues drew blood from the subjects before and after they had taken one gram of vitamin C a day for two weeks. They isolated the immune system cells from the blood of the subjects and measured the levels of immunity boosting substances called cytokines.

Certain virus-fighting cytokines were increased after two weeks of taking the vitamin; however, when they measured the levels two weeks later, they found that the levels had returned to normal, suggesting that the effect is short-lived.

Notice that this study was giving 1000 mg per day. High for medicine, but low and too infrequent by Foundation standards. Also supports the Hickey/Roberts Dynamic Flow idea that the half-life of vitamin C is short and must be taken continuously.

Note the bad advice to doctors who are generally ignorant of the properties of vitamin C . It is our experience that every orthodox report on vitamin C contains the obligatory misleading information on toxicity, such as the following:.

ritter wrote:Ritter pointed out that previous studies of vitamin C have recommended several grams a day of vitamin C, which could potentially be toxic. But in their study, the patients took a much lower amount.

Not true. Vitamin C has no known toxicity.

Owen R. Fonorow, Orthomolecular NaturopathMy statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Any product mentioned is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”